Convincing wandering monsters and reducing surrender cost with Diplomacy skill
Heroes 3 Diplomacy
Diplomacy reduces the cost of surrendering, and increases the chance that wandering monsters will join your army, either for free or at a price. It is recommended to have at least one hero, typically a support, learn this skill.
Enloe argues that the construction of official diplomacy as’masculine’ necessitates consideration of its feminisation. She outlines a broad survey of texts to identify and interrogate feministised figurations of the diplomat.
1. Convince Wandering Monsters to Join Your Army
Wandering monsters are creatures that will offer to join a hero’s army for free or for money. The chance that they will do this depends on several factors, including the hero’s primary skills and the strength of his army.
The hero’s secondary skill, diplomacy, increases the chances that neutral monsters will offer to join his army for free or at a discount. It also reduces the cost of surrendering to other heroes.
The secondary hero should spend most of his time doing things that the main hero cannot do himself – collecting artifacts, exploring mines and resources, occupying resource producing buildings and restocking the castle. A scout with advanced scouting is useful for this as well.
2. Reduce the Cost of Surrendering
It costs gold to surrender a hero to another hero. This cost is reduced by the Diplomacy secondary skill and artifacts Ambassador’s Sash, Diplomat’s Ring and Statesman’s Medal.
On fixed maps, with the default setting of “Join only for money”, creatures that surrender only pay half the hiring price. On random maps, if the hero has expert diplomacy, the hero will pay only 40% of the hiring price for surrendering.
In other words, a hero with expert diplomacy will pay about half as much to get a joiner as she would without it (assuming the hero was already in a good hiring mood). It is recommended that at least one hero, typically a support, learns this skill. This saves the main hero a skill slot and potentially many movement points.
3. Increase the Chance of Wandering Monsters Joining Your Army
The chance that wandering monsters will offer to join your army is influenced by several factors. The most important is the strength of your army compared to that of the enemy, and the percentage of your army that is occupied by creatures of the same type as the wandering monsters.
Additionally, creatures receive a morale bonus based on their native terrain, and some have specific rules (undead – no bonus, minotaurs – always +1 morale). The final factor is the hero’s diplomacy level.
Hero diplomacy increases the chance that wandering creatures will offer to join your army, and decreases the cost of surrendering to other heroes. It also enables the hero to learn primary skills from Library of Enlightenment earlier than experience level 10. Each level of Diplomacy is worth +2 to those primary skill.
4. Increase the Morale of Wandering Monsters
In the old system, wandering monsters would often be subject to morale checks. The GM would roll dice against the monster’s morale score, and if it failed, then the creature did something like flee or retreat or surrender. This system worked well in theory, but it created a lot of cognitive load for the GM.
Now, with Diplomacy and Visions, a hero can easily increase the chances that neutral creatures will join for free or reduce the cost of surrendering by a significant percentage. Furthermore, this ability lets the GM create fun and interesting side-effects when a creature’s morale breaks. For example, enraged enemies may keep fighting but no longer consider their allies as allies and will attack them instead. Or, a savage beast may go on a rampage and explode in elemental fury when it loses its nerve.
5. Reduce the Cost of Surrendering to Other Heroes
Normally a hero must pay half the hiring price of all creatures that he wants to surrender. This cost can be reduced by the Diplomacy secondary skill and the artifacts Ambassador’s Sash, Diplomat’s Ring and Statesman’s Medal.
However, the hero cannot surrender when defending a siege (even with Escape Tunnel) and when one of his heroes is wielding Shackles of War. Also, differently aligned creatures received by a hero that is skilled in Diplomacy may suffer from bad morale.
In general, with Diplomacy you can receive about twice as many joiners in a game compared to when it is not upgraded. Nevertheless, the hero still must use other abilities to win battles, such as Leadership or Luck. That’s why this skill is often considered overpowered, even in tournament and multiplayer games.
